Fighting Fears
by Psycho Goddess
Summary: ‘There are many ways I want to love youBut only when the time is right’ [GS]


**Title**: Fighting Fears

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**Summary**: 'There are many ways I want to love you/But only when the time is right' [GS]

**Author's Notes**: I disavow all knowledge of this story existing. That is all.

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**Disclaimer**: As I'm sure you'll be glad to know, I don't own the characters or the rights to the show. 

~... .....-*-... .....~
    
    _I knew the day I met you_
    
    _You were gonna bring a change in me_
    
    _But sometimes for a man_
    
    _Change don't come so easily_
    
    _It took a little time to figure out_
    
    _What it is I need to live and what to live without_
    
                                   -- "More Sorry Than You'll Ever Know", John Berry

~*~

He loved her. 

There was really no doubt to that statement, no method of aversion that would satisfy. It was common knowledge, as far as common knowledge went. But he hadn't told her, and she didn't ask. 

Content with what she had wanted for so long, Sara put no stock in confessions of never ending love and a dozen red roses. She accepted his uncommon methods of wooing as much as the traditional ones; he in turn tried to do what he thought she wanted.

            Grissom still remembered the events that had pushed him over the edge. The papers had dubbed Vegas's current serial killer the 'Henderson Hannibal', and the media pressure to nail him was immense. Sara wasn't the first one to catch a nap in the break room, but she did it more frequently than the others. One week became two, and two morphed into three all too quickly. And the body count grew.

            He told himself that it was the frustration of leadless evidence that caused him to snap at her that Thursday afternoon. 

            He found her in the break room, asleep. Her head rested on an open textbook, a grimace marring the illusion of peaceful slumber. He knew she had nightmares about cases- it came with the territory- but these ones seemed worse. She wouldn't talk about them, and most likely would have denied their existence.

            "Sara," he said, causing her eyes to flutter open.

            She stretched lazily before answering him. "Yeah?"

            "When was the last time you went home?"

            "Ummm…" she stalled. 

Her forehead was furrowed in thought, as if she couldn't remember. He didn't like what the signs were pointing at, and when he recognized the clothes she had been wearing for almost forty-eight hours he knew what he had to do.

"Come on."

It came out harsher than he had intended it to, but when she complied he didn't apologize. He grabbed her arm and propelled her out of the lab and into his Tahoe. She didn't resist.

~*~

Stopping at a deli, Grissom forced her to eat a sandwich before driving her to her apartment complex.  Ever the gentleman, he walked her to her door. She invited him in; he declined and told her to get some sleep. She countered with the fact she'd probably sleep better after a drink, and she wasn't drinking alone.

He yielded to her logic and entered the sparsely decorated apartment. She pointed him towards the couch and went into the kitchen. She came back quickly, an open beer in each hand.

He drank his quickly and told her to get some sleep. She smiled a smile that screamed 'Yeah, right' and told him she'd see him at work. Later, he couldn't testify under oath whether she stopped him or he stopped himself. Either way, he turned at the door.

"Promise me we'll catch him."

Her eyes begged for this false reassurance, becoming brown pools of anxiety when he didn't immediately reply. 

"Sara…."

She lifted one hand to stop him, already knowing his answer. In the space of a moment neither had planned she stood in front of him. She licked her lips nervously, her pink tongue darting in and out of her mouth quickly. He stood rooted in his place, fascinated by the tiny movements that indicated that this could only be Sara Sidle. 

She kissed him.

She wasn't drunk, but he knew sleep deprivation could lead to the same intoxicating lack of judgment. As her clothes fell to the floor, he reminded himself of that fact. But before he could act her mouth was hot against his, once more desperately seeking some consolation.

Grissom had always been a man who took pride on his self control, but Sara made that impossible. As her mouth crushed his –_where had that woman learned to do those things_ was his only thought- her fingers unbuttoned his shirt. A voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to stop, that he was a deplorable cad. 

Then she pulled back just far enough for him to see her smile, and he was lost.

~*~

            She was asleep when he left, her hair rumpled and her chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm.  He imagined that a small smile chased across her features when he whispered his goodbye. It was ridiculous though; she was in too deep a sleep for her to have possibly have heard. He memorized the scene from the doorway, knowing it was the only time he'd have the opportunity to see it.

            God, she was beautiful.

~*~

            Sara woke to an empty bed, and further investigation led her to conclude that not only was Grissom gone, he had left quite a bit of time earlier. The second beer was the only definite proof he had been there to begin with. 

            Had she been the type to use the lab's facilities to her advantage, she'd probably ask Greg to check the DNA on the bottle mouth, just to be sure. She smiled at the absurdity of the thought, and threw away both bottles before she headed to the lab.

~*~

            Grissom was sitting in his office, pretending to look over paperwork. His mind was back in at Sara's apartment. The experience had already lost some of its reality already; the linear progression of the memories had been replaced by disjointed sensations. 

The brush of her hair as it tickled his cheek. 

The throaty growl she had emitted as she pulled the last piece of clothing off his body. 

The smell of their sweat mingling into a fragrance unique to them.

            A knock on his door forced him to focus on the present. It was Sara. If he were to be perfectly honest, he didn't want to deal with this. Ever. 

            "Come in."

            "Hey," she said. She made her way to a chair, but didn't sit. Her face was indecipherable to him, and in a way he was grateful. The last thing he wanted was to know what she was thinking.

            "I assume you came for this?" he said, handing her an envelope.

            She regarded it warily.

            "What is it?"

            "Your letter of recommendation. An absolutely glowing one, if you must know."

            "Shit," Sara huffed quietly.

            He looked over the rim of his glasses at her. His voice was steady when he finally explained himself.

            "I crossed a boundary, and I apologize for that. I took advantage of the situation, and I can't ask your forgiveness."

            Her laugh was short, bitter and mirthless. 

            "It figures. I get what I want and I'm practically fired for it."

            "You're not fired."

            "Because I can stay here after this," Sara sarcastically muttered. "I've had enough of you acting like I'm a leper Grissom, and since there's no way that's going to change, I really don't think I have much of a choice."

            He sighed and took off his glasses. Pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, he weighed his options. None of them were very good, given the circumstances.

            "I'm sorry you feel that way Sara, I really am. But I can't wave a magic wand and have things work. I wish I could. I wish I had all the answers, but I don't."

            "'_Good questions outrank easy answers._'"

            "Paul Samuelson," he acknowledged with a smile. "But he's hardly applicable in this case."

            He expected her to put up some argument, even looked forward to it on some level. But she just looked at him, eyes level and undemanding.

            "Than who would be?"

            He seemed to give her question careful consideration before answering.

            "Henry Bromel. '_Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you? Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity_.' "     

            She smiled wanly. 

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was a confession of affection."

            "Close the door Sara."

            Confused, she complied. He shut the blinds, grabbed a seat and motioned her to take the other. Sara took it, curiosity overriding caution for the moment. Grissom had never been one to follow normal codes of expression, and she usually would have dismissed the practice as a waste of time. But there was a dangerous glint to his eye, and she regarded him as she would any potentially dangerous experiment.

            "I have three questions to ask you, and you will never have to deal with me again."

            "Alright…"

            "What do you want?"

            "From what?"

            "Me, life, the mailman…"

            The urge to snicker was barely suppressed.

            "Respect. Friendship…" seeing his head nod in agreement, and feeling particularly wicked, she finished with, "More lunches."

            She hadn't thought it was possible for a grown man to flush to that particular shade; Grissom taught her something every day.

            "Next question- Relationships…"

            "Need to come from a friendship," she said, sensing where he was going with this. She bit her cheek to avoid smiling too broadly, refusing to get her hopes up. But her stomach was aflutter before he even asked his final question.

            "Do you want to go for dinner?"

~*~

            They had meant to take things slowly, but the memory of that afternoon pushed events ahead rapidly. In the six months since he had asked they had found out the exact reason people acted like love was the most important element to life. Not that either one labeled it as such; it was merely mutual comprehension that it was.

            He hadn't found a way to say it yet; excluding his mother, there had never been anyone he had wanted to tell. He tried over a candlelit dinner once, but the words hadn't come out. She grinned at him when he had trailed off, but he sensed disappointment was the emotion that briefly veiled her eyes.

            He was sitting in his office again, this time actually attending to the paper pushing his job required. He sensed her presence before Billy Bass did, and rewarded her with a broad smile.

            "Hey Grissom, you almost done?"

            She came over and perched at the edge of his desk. The light from his reading lamp illuminated one arm, and he could see the freckles he knew covered a fair bit of her skin. 

            "I'd be done a lot faster if you weren't distracting me," he observed gently.  

            "Sorry," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Everybody's waiting for assignments though."

            "I'll be there in a few minutes."

            "Okay," she said, standing up and heading for the door.

            He called her name softly, and she turned around. In the half lit room he found the words he couldn't earlier.

            "I love you."

            Whatever he had expected her reaction to be, it was not the combination of confusion and worry that it was. She opened her mouth, but shut it when she didn't have a reply.

            "I shouldn't have said that…I'm sorry…"

            "Don't be sorry. Just be careful what you say."

            She grinned at him and went to the break room to wait for her assignment.

~*~

            She finished her case before shift's end, and offered to help Grissom with his paperwork. Thankful for any aid, he accepted it. They were out the door at seven, stopping for breakfast before heading back to his place. It was there he asked her about her odd response to his admission.

            She laughed, the husky laughter she reserved just for him.

            "We both survived the shift, so I guess I was overreacting a bit. My parents did manage to impart some very special superstitions in their daughter, most notably the idea of not tempting fate."

            "Do you believe that?" 

            His question could have been mocking, but Sara found it wasn't. It seemed that whatever had prompted his behavioural turn around- and she had a few ideas what that had been- had allowed him to open up. He was still an enigma, but she found that she could get a few layers deep.

            "No. But I didn't want to tempt fate."

Amusement sparkled in his eyes, and she kissed him. It was meant as a short peck to stop him from commenting, but it quickly became more. 

~*~

            She always liked Grissom's bedroom better than hers, because there was less light. Though considering how tired she was – courtesy of him- it was hardly a matter of great importance. 

            "Mmm…" he moaned, stroking her back lazily. 

Moving her hand lower, she grinned at him suggestively.

"You're insatiable, you know that?"

"You do a pretty good job," she conceded. 

"I'll keep that in mind. But you need to sleep now."

"So do you."

"Consider it done."

They both fell silent. Sara slept before Grissom did, and as he watched her sleep he told her again.

"I love you Sara."

And if he didn't know better, he'd swear that she smiled.

…………

Feedback appreciated. **:-)**


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